


Rising from the Ashes

by sanctum_c



Series: The Fire Dancer [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fire, Fire Powers, Gen, Nudity, Phoenixes, Resurrection, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: Aeris dies at the City of the Ancients. But that's not even close to the end of the story.
Relationships: AVALANCHE & Aerith Gainsborough
Series: The Fire Dancer [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009515
Kudos: 2





	Rising from the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'Scene rewrite'

Pain exploded through Aeris's mid-section. Her strength left her in an instant and she lurched forward, the movement abruptly halted by something that sent a torrent of agony blasting through her. The gleaming metal of what looked like a sword blade cut into the stone floor ahead of her. Where had that come from? Had it moved past her or beside her or- Through her. The blade protruded right out of her chest. Distant sounds of shouting and panic were somehow muted. There was someone talking behind her. Something important she still had to do, something else- But her eyelids were heavy. Despite every ounce of strength she could marshal, her eyes almost closed before something tugged her body backward, the movement lurching her head and shoulders up. Her eyes opened wide for an agonising moment. Cloud and Tifa staring at her in horror; she fell forward again, her eyes closing and the floor rushed towards her. The moment of impact never came.

Aeris fell into darkness. There was something green down below her. No. It could not end like this. Not now. Not after everything she had seen and done. After everything she still wanted to do, to see, to experience. Not after meeting all those people, seeing all those places. Not now before whatever was developing between her, Cloud and Tifa could reach any kind of conclusion. But what could she do? This was her return to the Planet; this was the point of her death. She was nothing but a falling consciousness, robbed of physical sensation; not even a sense of movement in her continuing descent. She could not move. In desperation she drew upon the comfort of fire.

Her constant companion, the innate ability she seemed to hold thanks to her heritage. Potentially powerful and destructive; her use for it had been for entertainment to the populace of Midgar. Nothing wrong with that; it let her keep on going, keep on living. Her fire could dazzle and enchant; it could also destroy. But could it save her? She drew on the flame, the spark still there, still under her control. Aeris urged a tendril of fire upwards. Foolish notion; fire could no more support her mass than air could. But then; she did not seem to have mass any longer. At the end of a life, humans returned to the Lifestream. At the end of their journey, Cetra found their promised land. She was both and neither end appealed at this juncture. Could she come back? Of course, but not without waiting who knew how long to be reborn. And with the certainty she would no longer be the same, and who knew where or how old Cloud and Tifa would be by then.

Her tendril struck something; she held tight and her descent slowed. Paused now between the green below and the darkness above. A burning lifeline threading back to somewhere else. To where everyone else was. What now? To remain like this would be still worse than to continue her descent. How to return? The phoenix. The guardian bird above Fort Condor. Aeris had been utterly fascinated with the creature during their visit. Somehow the creature used flames to drag itself back to life from nothing but a burnt out husk. All using fire. Fire was not simply a method of destruction. The fire was life. The tendril of flame flickered, something at the very tail end - at the point of anchoring - was burning. Carbon. There was carbon there. The fundamental building block of life.

Could she do this? Or perhaps more accurately, did she have anything to lose by trying?

At her urging the tendril intensified, the temperature rising to the extremes needed to split molecules. To forge the base chemicals of her body and create it anew. What was happening above; was she cannibalising her own body? Her burnt husk providing the essential components for a new form? Irrelevant. Her success was all that mattered. She shortened the tendril and Aeris ascended. The process continued, re-purposing anything the flame touched. Soon. The magnet-like draw of the Lifestream relaxed as she rushed ever upwards-

Aeris opened her eyes. Sephiroth stared at her in disbelief and raised his sword. Not this time. Without waiting another moment, she raised her arms (arms! She had remade her arms just as she remembered) and unleashed all the fire she could. Sephiroth did not have a chance to move- But this was not Sephiroth. The flames washed over his form but Sephiroth seemed little beyond a thin layer, a film of oil stretched across the something that mimicked the man's shape. The surface vaporized when the flames touched it; beneath was a twisted mass of alien flesh, crammed into the correct shape, but utterly wrong. The creature - the thing - barely had a chance to scream when fire consumed it and left nothing but ash in its wake. The Masamune clattered to the floor but already the Planet whispered that the threat was far from over.

“Aeris?” Tifa. She turned. Cloud, Barret, Nanaki, Cait Sith and Cid were staring towards the ceiling looking distinctly red. Tifa rushed forward and slammed into Aeris, arms tight around her. “We thought- How-?” Tifa trailed off and hugged her harder.

“Miss me?” Aeris murmured and hugged Tifa back. “What’s up with all of you?”

“You are very naked,” Yuffie said matter of factly.

Aeris smiled; her cheeks felt warm. Clothes had been the absolute last thing on her mind during her resurrection. Tifa coughed and stepped away. “I, er, I’m sure we can get you something to wear. For now?” She hunkered down and hastily sifted through her pack. A polite cough came behind Aeris. Vincent averted his gaze and held his cloak out to her.

“Thank you,” Aeris said and pulled it closed around her. “I’m decent now guys!” Cloud nervously glanced over, still pink and nervous when she smiled at him. Not quite how she intended this kind of moment to go with either Cloud or Tifa, but at least the opportunity still existed. Her future was not yet gone.

Clearly they needed to get Aeris some new clothes when they hit the next settlement. For now she wore a mixture of spares. Tifa had picked up one of Aeris’s bikinis by mistake which would have to suffice for underwear. A pair of Yuffie’s shorts and Barret’s vest in addition to Vincent’s cloak gave her something like a semblance of clothing. Shoes gave them the biggest problem and they resorted to making something like clogs out of bandages and wood hacked from the nearby woods. “Not sure I want to give the cloak back,” Aeris said and she took some experimental steps, sweeping the fabric around. With a lunge forward, she flared the cloak up so it whipped around Cloud and then Tifa a moment later.

The last Cetra remained alive with the people she loved.


End file.
